Shuggy's Blog

Parents' nights vs marking

2009-11-22T21:46:00.003Z

Can't decide which of these is more evil. They're both fairly excruciating. What they have in common is a) pulverizing tedium, b) they provide frequent occasions where you're confronted with evidence of your professional irrelevance.

What parents' nights have going for them is that they happen less often.

What they have against them is that, unlike marking, you can't execute your responsibilities with the aid of good things like fags, coffee, and central heating.

I can't decide. All I know is it's parents' night tomorrow and I would be extremely grateful if someone could write me a note saying I don't have to go.

Music nostalgia

2009-11-21T10:48:00.005Z

This is deep music nostalgia - positively subterranean. I'd completely forgotten about this band until I heard them on the radio recently. They're a hard rock outfit called UFO. In retrospect it's an unfortunate name for them because today on Google and YouTube rankings they have to compete with people looking for shit about alien autopsies.

Quite a few bloggers who are around the same age as me talk about how they used to like punk - saying it as if this was cool or something. It really isn't. You do realise you're keeping company with Michael Gove, don't you?

"But the righteous anger she displayed, denouncing McLaren for his cynicism in ripping off young record-buyers, ripping into the Pistols for their lack of musicianship, only reminded me what it was that I liked about punk."

The ripping off record-buyers and the lack of musicianship? Well he is a Tory... I used to like punk - until I was about thirteen. Then I realised it was a big pile of cack - at least as commercial and pretentious as anything it imagined it was reacting against. So I made a backward progression that ended up in the blues - but stopped off with a little hard rock. Forgotten how good this crew were. Saw them live in 1981, I think - at the Glasgow Apollo.

This song in particular has more of a punky edge than I realised at the time. How the Clash might have sounded if they'd ever learned to play their instruments properly. "Ah but punk wasn't about musicianship", says the ex-punk. I know. That's why it was shit. A triumph of style over substance every bit as much as the Flock of Seagulls.

Edookashun news

2009-11-18T23:28:00.004Z

From the Queen's speech we learn that children in England are to be given legal rights to a good education. Blair may be gone but the Project lives, its essence distilled in this proposal: why actually do something when you can pass a law that says something must be done, instead?

You'd think that after twelve years of government, they might ponder that perhaps the whole central control thing hasn't been an unalloyed success - but you could only think this if you haven't been paying much attention during the last decade or so. They have, it should go without saying, concluded that there is not nearly enough central control. For example:

"New curriculum guidance says the well-being of "mini-beasts", including bees, ants and worms, should be taught in classes as part of primary school's "animals and us" section of the citizenship curriculum.

By the age of seven, pupils will have learnt that "not stamping on insects" is appropriate behaviour "in areas where animals live"."

Fair enough - but my own view is that pupils should be taught to extend this courtesy to their fellow humans first, and then work their way down the food chain.

Anyway, the government is also including the right to more press-ups in their educational Magna Carta. No, really:

"[P]upils will have guaranteed access to five hours PE or sport a week in and out of school."

I'm not sure this is enough though. Today our youth have more PE and possess more tracksuits than at any time since the dawn of civilisation - yet they are also increasingly large. Discuss...

Our English friends are also going to be released from the tiresome burden of teaching discrete subjects:

"The bill will legislate for a new primary curriculum, starting in September 2012, to reorganise traditional subject areas such as history and science into thematic areas of learning, such as "historical, geographical and social" lessons, to try to ease the pressures of the cumbersome curriculum on schools and give them the freedom to do cross-subject thematic lessons."

You could take an Italian theme, for example - with a couple of lessons on the Risorgimento, followed by The Merchant of Venice, pop off to home economics to make a pizza - then during their copious PE time, pupils could learn to make a huge drama out of a barely perceptable foul on the football park. Inspiring isn't the word.

Technology and religious criticism

2009-11-02T21:51:00.002Z

Marina Hyde argues that the internet has done a great job in exposing the dark heart of Scientology but regrets that this fire isn't brought to bear on other belief systems too:

"Clearly, Scientologists should be forced to justify their doctrinal lunacies – the only sadness is that other religions are apparently exempt from having to do the same. Imagine for a moment a Bashir-type interviewing some senior cardinal. "So," he might inquire, "you're saying that by some magic the communion wafer actually becomes the flesh of a man who died 2,000 years ago, a man who – and I don't want to put words into your mouth here – we might categorise as an imaginary friend who can hear the things you're thinking in your head? And when you've done that, do you mind going over the birth control stuff?""

Yes, why is there this disproportionate energy devoted to debunking this particular cult rather than other religions? Perhaps for the same reason that when discussing 'other religions', Marina Hyde picked Catholicism and the doctrine of transubstantiation rather than, say, Islam and the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Koran: because it's easier that way?

Probably a bit unfair. At least part of the reason why people are interested in Scientology is because while it doesn't have many followers, they count a disproportionate number of celebrities amongst their ranks. Celebs seem vulnerable to all manner of eccentric religious beliefs. I was wondering if this isn't a strain of man's social being determining his consciousness: celebrities by the very nature of their existence are going to find it much easier to believe that the cosmos has been arranged for their benefit than those of us who tend to collide with reality on a more regular basis?

The drugs debate: all a bit Nutt's

2009-11-02T20:10:00.004Z

Like most people who have commented on this, the sacking of Professor David Nutt from the government's drugs advisory council has left me wondering what the point of soliciting independent scientific advice is, if you're just going to ignore it? Add to this the political ineptitude of the walnut with sledge hammer approach that Alan Johnson has taken here. Whenever drugs are discussed in the media, there's always some journo who recycles the line about how the biggest danger posed by drugs is that it makes the user a crashing bore. Hmmm, but not as boring as some hack striking a libertarian, yet world-weary, pose. The 'drugs debate' is boring - so most people are understandably uninterested in it. If Alan Johnson's goal was to shake people out of this relative indifference, he could have scarcely done a better job.

But there my agreement with those journalists and bloggers who seem to have adopted Professor Nutt as some kind of rationalist liberal hero/victim ends. Because while some appear to think the case represents the primacy of science and something called 'evidence-based policy-making', I was rather under the impression that Professor Nutt was making a case for the primacy of scientists:

"Professor Nutt said that the council was no longer tenable as a functioning advisory group. 'I can’t believe any self-respecting scientist would serve on it,' he declared. Writing in The Times today, he calls for the creation of a truly independent advisory council on drugs modelled on the way that interest rates are set by an expert committee."(Emphasis mine)

Hmph! The setting of short-term interest rates is something that has since 1997 been put beyond ministerial control. Is he seriously suggesting this should be the case with drugs policy too? And if so, why stop there? Why not have a government of experts in health, education, defence? Because as well as having grave implications for anything resembling democratic government, there's every reason to question the notion that just because someone may have expertise in one area - in this case, science - they'll be any good at something quite different - in this case, policy-making. I would have thought this was obviously the case with Professor Nutt. He takes as given the business whereby drug use is arranged into a hierarchy of harm, to which is then attached an appropriate level of disincentive and punishment. He says, for example, that, "The reason for making drugs illegal is to let society reduce harms by punishing their sale and use", without offering much in the way of any opinion as to whether this approach actually works or, even if it did, whether prohibition can be justified in these terms. In other words, there is no evidence as yet that Professor Nutt is particularly interested in politics - which tends to reinforce the impression that he has indeed strayed into areas that are beyond his competence.

On Calvinism

2009-11-02T00:18:00.002Z

Why the hatred for Calvin, asks Andrew Brown? Well, he wasn't a very nice man and the blood of Michael Servetus bears witness against him - but since this isn't enough for Andrew Brown, thought I might take a moment to take issue with his argument.

Calvin's cosmology was remorseless, depressing and anti-human - can anyone who has actually read him take issue with this? Brown's point is that since a number of secular philosphers take an equally bleak view of the human condition, why is Calvin given such a hard time for it?

Methinks the answer is pretty goddamn straightforward: no matter how bleak an atheist philospher's view of the world is, at least they don't invite us to worship a deity that created it this way.

Weber had Calvin's measure when he said that Calvinism overcomes the theodicy problem by utterly obliterating the goodness of God. Was there ever an artist that hated his own work quite as much as Calvin's god? I don't think so. This is why theists and atheists alike despise Calvin. They are right to do so, in my view.

Anyway, here's a question that, in my experience, believers find more difficult to answer than the theodicy question. It's this: why does god want us to worship him? Believers usually respond with reasons why they want to worship him and why He is worthy of it and so on. But that isn't what I asked. The prize for a winning answer to this question is a copy of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Tips on going vegetarian

2009-10-28T22:48:00.002Z

Laura Barton has a few tips here.

I have three of my own:

1) Don't go anywhere near tofu. 'Tis the cock-cheese of the devil and humans have no business consuming it.

2) Quorn is made from the scrotal tissue of elves and is also to be avoided.

3) Either do it or don't. But spare us this, "I'm a vegetarian but I sometimes eat fish" shit. Because a fish is not a vegetable! This shouldn't need pointing out - but it does. Frequently.

BNP meets Glasgow

2009-10-28T21:56:00.000Z

'Ra beeb:

"BNP leader Nick Griffin was also campaigning in Glasgow. The party has said it would would turn back asylum seekers trying to enter the UK country if they had passed other "safe countries" on their way to Britain."

OH no he wasn't. I have amusing update:

"BRITISH National Party leader Nick Griffin faced angry protests today as he appeared on a local radio phone-in.

A group of around 40 demonstrators heckled the politician and threw eggs as he arrived at the headquarters of L107 in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, station bosses said.

Mr Griffin was taking part in a morning phone-in on the commercial station less than a week after his controversial appearance on the BBC's Question Time.

He later dropped plans to campaign in the Glasgow North-East by election, instead choosing to visit the FEBA Veterans' Centre in Hamilton."

He was planning to visit Springburn shopping centre, apparently - but thought better of it. Because he had heard that the people of Springburn have no dairy products to throw, only bottles and stuff.

Signage

2009-10-28T21:36:00.002Z

No hats. Because there's been an outbreak of vicious hat-wearing in our place recently. Woolly hats, baseball hats, top hats, bowler hats, fedoras... Unless you nip these things in the bud, you'll have Lord of the Flies with hats on before you know it.

Eighties revivals that are a bad idea #1

2009-10-25T17:13:00.006Z

There's been a lot of rather distressing developments in the world of fashion and popular culture that have to do with evil people trying to inflict - reinflict - some of the most revolting trends from the eighties.

The Killers, for example, having produced a rock classic in the form of When You Were Young are now inflicting this shite on us. "And I'm on my knees looking for the answer - are we human, or are we dancers?" Why pray when you can realise these aren't mutually exclusive? But the nonsensical nature of the lyrics shouldn't distract us from the fact that this little ditty has been set to a distinctly evil eighties-sounding tune.

More on this later but for now surely we should treat the return of one of the eightes most egregious fashion-statements - the mullet - with a mixture of incomprehension, rage and disgust? I couldn't find an appropriate photo but not only can I confirm that growing numbers of adolescent boys are choosing this absurd hair-styling option - in some cases they have compounded the outrage by dyeing it a different colour!

When I rule the world, the body-count will be significantly higher than it is now - but it will be a more aesthetically pleasing place in which to live.

Homework annoyances

2009-10-25T16:57:00.002Z

One of the many facets of this job that I hate is the evil that are parents' nights. You rarely see the ones you need to see. Instead all you get is a smattering of extremely tense parents who are in a perpetual state of panic whenever the barrage of pointless tasks that we like to call homework lets up for a couple of days. Tis time for the silent majority - those of us, parents and teachers alike, who think the whole enterprise is a goddamn waste of human energy - to make a stand and demand an end to the sending home of crappy worksheets that have to be completed under duress.

If that isn't bad enough, parents are sent homework too. For instance, I got a sheet about the school development plan and was to provide feedback on various topics and suggest what the school might do about them. The first on the list was the Curriculum for Excellence programme. One can resist anything but temptation: I suggested someone might set to work on an English translation.

Mainstreaming extremism #2

2009-10-24T16:58:00.005+01:00

You all must be more or less Griffined-out by now so I'll be brief.

The BBC claimed it was their commitment to balance and impartiality that was behind their invitation to Griffin on Question Time - but since the format of the show clearly demonstrated that this isn't a commitment that they take very seriously, one was left wondering what the point of inviting him in the first place was?

I have to say I'm surprised at the number of commentators saying that Thursday's Question Time either allayed their worst fears or even changed their minds from a position of opposition to his appearance. This isn't a feeling I share. Richard Seymour makes two arguments I agree with very neatly here; Dai is even more succinct and to the point here. I've just a couple of things to add:

1) Everyone's going on about how uncomfortable Griffin looked. I don't agree. How uncomfortable did he really look? Uncomfortable the way a leader of a racist criminal gang should look? I don't think so. People have remarked, for example, that the issue of his Holocaust denial was 'raised'. Not good enough. Paxman received plaudits for pressing a question on the then Home Secretary Michael Howard something like eighteen times. But something eminently more serious and malevolent than whether a Minister of the Crown threatened to overrule a civil servant doesn't justify a similar persistence?

2) He looked shifty, uncomfortable and evasive, according to most accounts. So he did. So what? Why are people effectively arguing that making a tit of yourself on national television is in some way politically decisive? I saw the then Governor of Texas George W Bush being interviewed and making a fool of himself because he couldn't name the ruler of Pakistan. You'll recall he then went on to become President of the United States. Making a tit of yourself on the television is a fairly routine experience for politicians. That Griffin also did isn't particularly significant; it doesn't do anything much to 'expose the BNP for what they are' - in the long-run it serves only to normalise them.

Some of us argued this from the outset. While we might well be proved wrong about this, the most recent evidence would suggest that our concerns were not misplaced.

SNP stuff

2009-10-18T23:41:00.002+01:00

Nicola Sturgeon announced that the 'right to buy' policy has 'had its day'.

Have to say I'm broadly supportive. The problem with this policy, introduced under Thatcher, is that it was one example amongst many under her reign where local government powers were emasculated. It doesn't matter if you think it was a good idea or not - the point is under this scheme local government was compelled to offer its housing stock up for sale by central government and this can't be supported by anyone that believes in decentralisation.

Alex Salmond reveals his evil plan:

"Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, Mr Salmond said his preferred option would be for a straight "yes or no" question on Scottish independence.

But he added: "I have also indicated that if it was necessary to obtain the parliamentary majority in the Scottish parliament to have a third defined option on the ballot paper, which could be done by a couple of questions or by preference voting, then I would be prepared to discuss that and probably be prepared to concede it, so long as independence for Scotland is on the ballot paper."

I'm in a minority of one on this, as far as I know but - and I'm repeating myself - I reckon this, far from being something Salmond is reluctant to concede, is what he actively wants: being not entirely stupid he knows perfectly well that actual independence, with a separate border, foreign policy, army and currency, is never going to happen. But he's happy to have that presented on a 'multi-option' referendum, knowing full well that people will recoil from this but find in contrast option three (whatever that might be - fiscal autonomy etc.) more palatable. The opposition could and should call his bluff but they're too dim and too timid to do so, I reckon.

The SNP have also been arguing about the Euro, apparently. Swinney was arguing with a certain MEP who is living in the past and seems to think that the UK Bank Rate is higher than the ECB rate. But the question was over whether to have a referendum over Scotland's membership of a European monetary policy. On this, MEP Alyn Smith had the following to say:

"Making the argument to remove the referendum proviso, Mr Smith said: "I think we can be too conditional about what we want an independent Scotland to look like, too conditional about public opinion, too conditional about what sort of orientated economy we want to see."

"We are a Nordic, European country, currently part of a debt-laden sub-prime toxic assent currency we don't want to be part of and which is not serving our interests well.""

Nordic country? We'll park that one for now. It's the thing about being part of a "debt-laden sub-prime toxic assent currency" that got me. Four words: Royal Bank of Scotland. Anyone needing any argument beyond that simply hasn't been paying attention.

"Postmodern theology"

2009-10-14T21:52:00.002+01:00

In my experience Christians pretend to be opposed to postmodernism but really they love it because it gives them a) a convoluted form of prose much to their liking, b) the epistemological relativism gives them shadows in which to hide. Enter the queen of obfuscation, Karen Armstrong:

"The earliest Christian theology was apophatic. Apophatic theology -- the theology of the original, Greek-speaking Christian church -- was "naysaying" theology, a kind of religious language whose difficult task it was to acknowledge in human language the very inadequacy of human language. Whatever it said, apophatic theology immediately took back, and then it took back the taking back. Ordinary language -- the language of evidence and inference, of instance and generalization -- was fine for ordinary matters. But to confess the universal human experience of a final failure in this language is to take back the confession. It is to lose the game before it begins."

This is her position being described by someone else, one should say. One should also say it is complete bollocks. "Apophatic" theology has to do with the process of defining God in terms of what cannot be said about Him. We needn't detain you too long with the details of this essentially mystical branch of theology because it is simply false to pretend that the early church thought or spoke in this way. Here's St Paul, whose claim to be a theologian of original Christianity is at least as good as anyone's, one would have thought:

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

That was Paul having a day off from the apophatic style of theologising. He had quite a few of these, as his letters show. I've said it before but I think Karen Armstrong knows this perfectly well and is trying it on with an audience that is not postmodern but simply post-Christian and who don't, therefore, have the resources to call her out on this sort of thing. The thing is, Dietrich Bonhoeffer identified - and dismissed - the type of argument that Karen Armstrong is trying to pretend is a discovery of the old. He said if you try to preserve a space for God in what cannot be explained - or as Armstrong would have it here, even described - you're left with the problem that the spirit of scientific discovery is making this space increasingly small. Bonhoeffer's solution was ethical engagement with the world, which is why he was executed by the Nazis; Armstrong's is to retreat into mysticism. Her fate will surely involve having her books favourably reviewed by liberal journals dismayed by the stridency of the 'New Atheists'. Poor thing.

Via: Norm

New Tories, new danger: the mainstreaming of extremism

2009-10-10T21:28:00.003+01:00

People can be incredibly stupid about the stupid party. Here's someone, for example, going on about the 'pinks turning blue' and asking: what has changed about the Tories? I think we're seriously being invited to believe that the apparent phenomenon of gay voters switching to Cameron's New Model Conservatives is evidence that they really are quite nice now.

This is just idiotic. What's changed about the Tories? Absolutely nothing. Everyone with any understanding of the history of British Conservatism knows that one of the ingredients of their electoral success in the 20th century was a hunger for power combined with enough pragmatism to adjust to contemporary reality - when contemporary reality absolutely insisted on it. For instance, the view amongst most social historians is that the 'postwar consensus' was a bit of a myth - with the Tories only accepting the existence of the NHS, for example, when they were confronted with the fact that it was actually quite popular and politically impossible to dismantle. The Cameronian acceptance of homosexuality is merely an example of this.

It's also a fairly trivial example since it doesn't fundamentally touch on the Tory view of economy and society, which remains really rather, um, conservative. This shouldn't be that surprising - the name of the party is a bit of a give away here. But if that isn't enough, there's two positions they've taken - both fundamentally related - that rather give the game away.

One is their position on Europe. I don't really want to get into the ding-dong about the nature of Cameron's unsavoury allies in Europe, partly because I don't know enough about them but also because it can distract from the wider point: even if there was no firm evidence of the Tories' new friends being homophobes and/or anti-Semites, the position he has taken with regards to the EPP is itself something that puts him and his party out of the mainstream of European democratic political parties. I appreciate this is a contestable point and I would acknowledge that it is intellectually feasible to be a reasonable centrist and also be Eurosceptic or even be in favour of complete withrawl. But the reality of the situation is that the overwhelming majority of those who take this position belong to either the hard left or the hard right. Put simply, the former think the EU is too 'neoliberal'; for the latter it isn't nearly neoliberal enough, as well as being by definition not nationalist enough.

And after the Tory conference, no-one can be in any doubt anymore that this is where Cameron is coming from. Martin Kettle is right to describe the Cameron speech as a 'revelatory moment' because his remarks about the role of government in relation to the bank crisis were absolutely astonishing:

""It is more government that got us into this mess," Cameron said. "Why is our economy broken? Not just because Labour wrongly thought they'd abolished boom and bust. But because government got too big, did too much and doubled the national debt." When Britain was in recovery, he said in his peroration, it would not be because of government or ministers, but because "you made it happen"."

The piece goes on to question whether there's anyone else in the economically developed world that believes the credit crunch was caused by government that was too big, too involved? It's rhetorical, obviously - one would hope not because it is so patently absurd. I'm a little surprised that more hasn't been made of this. I'm also a bit worried. There's been a few to choose from but with this remark alone, Cameron vacated the centre ground and reality simultaneously. Yet apart from in the pages of the Guardian, there's been little made of it in the MSM. Plus the aforementioned well-known serious leftwing paper carries this sort of comment - but alongside the unserious musings of a political ignoramus who thinks the Tories have changed simply because they've realised it isn't electorally expedient to be quite so mean to gays and single-parents. Kettle adds:

"Cameron and Osborne seem to think they are confronted with another 1979 when they should be more concerned with a repeat of 1929."

He's right although I'll be a little pedantic with the dates: the Wall Street Crash was in 1929 but after this, the US economy recovered for a while; most (all?) economic historians would date the Great Depression proper from 1931. I doubt we would see anything on this scale but I have absolutely no doubt that a rush to slash public spending would turn a 'double-dip' recession from a possibility to a probability. Osbourne deserves absolutely no credit at all for being 'honest about the public finances'. It's not just that honesty is of limited value in politics when you're completely wrong, it's that I doubt this is honesty at all: assuming he isn't a complete ignoramus (debatable, I realise), he must know perfectly well that the measures he has already announced are really just tinkering at the margins. What I'm concerned about is that they are the tip of an iceberg that reveals underlying determination to embark on a Nozickean vandalisation of public services, using the state of the public finances as an excuse to do so.

I've argued on this space more than once that Cameron's skills as a political strategist have been consistently underestimated. Now I'm worried I was more right than I knew. He has positioned his party on ground that the original Thatcherites feared to tread - and has done so with hardly anyone noticing.

People losing their damn minds #26

2009-10-04T23:59:00.004+01:00

This could go to anyone involved in this horrible idea to have a US style pre-election TV debate amongst the UK party leaders. Why Brown would agree to such nonsense is beyond me. My objection to these are two-fold:

1) We don't live in a goddamn presidential system. When I cast my vote, I'm not voting for a Prime Minister but an MP. Parliament elects the Prime Minister.

2) Even in a presidential system, they're pretty awful. I can't remember seeing an American one that didn't make me feel like retching. There was Clinton feeling people's pain, which was fairly nauseating. But the outstanding one for me was the Bush vs Gore one. Hanging chads and accusations of corruption in Florida notwithstanding, I think I could make a case for this losing Gore the election. I read somewhere that Naomi Wolf advised him to get in touch with his 'inner sexual panther' or something equally bizarre. Dunno if this is true but the net result of whatever advice he received was that he looked completely barking. Democracy is not well served by these puke-fests, in my view.

Anyway, the damn mind certificate in this case is to be awarded to Alex Salmond. Given that he spends most of his time looking like a malevolent host on some really fucked up colosseum TV game show, I find it completely unsurprising that he's apparently miffed about being left out of this latest televisual foray into the darker regions of plebian populism:

"[T]he SNP has threatened to seek to block the screening in Scotland of any debate which did not include Scottish First Minister Mr Salmond.
Mr Swinney told BBC Scotland's Politics show the SNP was the party of government at Holyrood, adding that the UK debates would discuss issues of importance to Scotland, such as the future of nuclear submarines on the Clyde.
Mr Swinney said the SNP was prepared to be flexible, saying of the current arrangements: "It deprives the voters in Scotland of hearing the breadth of political choice that quite clearly exists here in Scotland about the input of Scotland into the UK General Election."

Um, Alex Salmond doesn't lead a British party and doesn't aspire to be the Prime Minister of Britain so the basis on which he should be invited on this frightening 'debate' would be fairly non-existent, I would have thought. Yet we are told the SNP are seriously considering legal action? Lunatics. The notion that we are here in Scotland deprived of some information we didn't already know is absurd. The SNP's preferred choice for Prime Minister is David Cameron. Everyone knows this. Actually, scrub the previous objection: if this horrible debate has to go ahead, I'd quite like to watch Salmond come on and try to pretend this isn't so.

On motes and beams

2009-09-27T23:35:00.004+01:00

It's a strong field in which to compete but I think Andrew Brown's argument here that the 'New Atheists' are a bunch of snobs has to win the prize for the most inconsistent and absurd attempt to claim the class card for one's position that I have ever seen.

He begins by acknowledging that adherence to religion has no class element in this country, unlike the US (this in itself a dubious proposition). Not a particularly strong basis on which to argue that atheists are really just social elitists in drag, one would have thought? To compound his difficulties, he then goes on to describe the motivation behind working class atheism with a truly breath-taking condescension:

"But in this country, unlike the US, the poor are not devout. They're hardly atheist on principle; they just reckon that "it's all rubbish", along with every other system of organised thought. This means that not going to church does not function in itself as a class marker here in the way that it works in the US."

I appreciate this will be difficult to believe but he then moves from here to claim the solidarity with the poor card for his particular brand of patrician Anglicanism*:

"Obviously, it is no longer done to sneer at the working classes for being idle, brutish, smelly, and breeding too much. But it's perfectly OK to sneer at "faith heads" for all these things: that shows you're enlightened. It's pure coincidence that the despicable believers are for the most part lower class as well."

Amazing, isn't it? One can form an argument based on a contradiction of what you yourself have already said in the previous paragraphs of your own goddamn article and still pick up a pay-check from Guardian.co.uk.

But lurking in the shadows of this truly dismal piece is a half-formed argument that we've seen previously on this space from the likes of the excruciating Karen Armstrong, which is - and I hope that they'll forgive me for summarising it crudely, but accurately, as: religion isn't about what you believe but what you do. 'Performative' is a word beloved of - what shall we call them? - the New Guardianista Theists For Obfuscation?

But this won't do. What the believer does is informed and motivated by what they believe. I dare say the rituals and customs of 'performative' piety give consolation, sense of belonging and all that but one could be forgiven for thinking that Brown, Armstrong et al are engaged in an exercise that is attempting to delegitimize any questioning of the beliefs that motivate these acts of piety.

Why they should do this when history is replete with examples of how organized religion has used the claim to cognitive infallibility to such lethal effect is a question for them to answer but I'd like to ask them something else as well: doesn't the often threadbare utilitarian defences they give for their varying brands of conservative catholicism rather undermine the basis of the belief system they claim to defend? For no man ever forsook his father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter and took up his cross in order to support the nuclear family, preserve the work ethic, reduce crime in the neighbourhood or foster charitable giving as an important ingredient in civil society. Rather it was for the salvation of his own soul. An inconvenient truth for the soft theists of Comment is Free but if they were concerned with truth, they would realise they're simply engaged in an exercise that has to do with imposing a liberal narrative on salvation religions that don't have one. Then they'd be out of a job. Sorry, what was that you were saying about social hierarchy?

*Correction: from the comments below, I learn that Brown isn't an Anglican - just one of those high-church atheist types - 'Atheism is ok - just don't discuss it in front of the servants' .

The 'Facebook Generation'

2009-09-26T19:25:00.004+01:00

I found a link to this dropped in my comments boxes, in what I can only assume was an act of pure malevolence designed to depress me even further:

"The "Facebook Generation" of young teachers should be appointed to top school posts to help pupils switch back on to learning, a former senior government adviser has said.

Twenty-somethings who have just started teaching represent the best chance of engaging today's pupils with school, said Professor David Hargreaves, a researcher with the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and former head of the Government's exams watchdog.

Schools had to recognise that older heads and senior management had little understanding of "Generation Y" – people in their teens and twenties who were brought up with the internet. "The central problem of our time is not standards. It is actually about getting kids to engage with learning."

Uh huh? i have a question: if generation y are so gr8 and techno-savvy, then how cum they cant find the goddamn upper-lowercase key on a fucking keyboard?

Smeato: from hero to zero

2009-09-26T15:56:00.005+01:00

Introducing John Smeaton, the candidate for Glasgow North East, promising to bring a completely new brand of utterly incoherent populism to Parliament. One of the 'concerns of ordinary voters' that he's going to take up is immigration. Given that he aspires to represent a Scottish seat, perhaps he intends to argue that there just isn't enough of it - especially not into the depressing post-industrial desert with windows that is Glasgow North East? We just don't know - and neither does John Smeaton:

"Smeaton: "I think immigrants have done a fantastic job in this country. Immigrants have made this country a lot better. There just needs to be a fairer system."

Question: What's unfair about it at the moment?

Smeaton: "I just think it needs to be fairer across the board?"

Question: Why?

Smeaton: "I just think it has to be fairer. You hear so many differential things happening I just think we need a clearer picture on immigration."

Question: What's wrong with it?

Smeaton: "I don't know. It's a thing I put down to my constituents and what my constituents want and I'll go on that."

Bloody hell! Anyway, here he is being introduced as the candidate for the distinctly dodgy 'Jury Team' by Alan Wallace who goes from the Declaration of Arbroath (1320!) to the frankly bat-shit crazy idea of government by perpetual referenda in one sentence.

Now look here Smeato: we liked the whole punching burning terrorists thing but you're making a complete twat of yourself now. Wallace in the clip above says something about people getting the politicians they deserve. For myself I don't doubt that the people of Glasgow North East deserve better than this crypto-fascist bullshit.

Smeato: piss off - we don't like you anymore.

Smeaton fact of the day: he was born in Bishopton and later lived in Erskine until he fucked off to America. For those unfamiliar with the local geography, both of these places are in Renfewshire and not in Glasgow. So how well does he know Glasgow East? He tells us that his mammy used to work in a chemist on Saracen Street when he was a boy. That makes him a fucking expert on the problems of the area today apparently!

Another thing: Perhaps those of us who know the area rather better than the Erskine boy should remind him that the constituency takes in Sighthill where many asylum seekers have been housed over the years. We would like to remind him further that cheap anti-immigration rhetoric there has come with a heavy cost. On reflection, 'remind' is a poor choice of words, assuming as it does prior knowledge that has been forgotten. But Smeato, as we can see, hasn't forgotten anything - he never had a clue in the first place.

On the Curriculum for Excellence

2009-09-21T20:27:00.005+01:00

The consensus seems to be that it is in serious trouble:

"The Scottish Government's flagship education policy was under fire last night as teachers, academics, business leaders and politicians lined up to criticise the Curriculum for Excellence.
The policy – a massive overhaul of education in Scotland's schools – is due to be up and running by August next year.

But in a major challenge to education secretary Fiona Hyslop, Lindsay Paterson, one of Scotland's most distinguished educational policy academics, said the new curriculum was "vague", "confused" and likely to turn schools "upside down"."

Hmmm, so wot do the Scottish Government saith?

"A Scottish Government spokesman said: "The fundamental principle of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is to trust teachers. Our guidance supports them to develop the learning experience of their children in and beyond the classroom.

"CfE is being developed with very close involvement and leadership alongside key Scottish education agencies and trade unions to ensure CfE will provide the change needed within Scotland's education. We have received long and continued support from these bodies.

"In April this year, the Scottish Government issued a coherent set of experiences and outcomes which demonstrate how the skills of children from three to 18 years will develop and standards will be raised.

"This was completed with unparalleled involvement of hundreds of teachers, colleges and early years' providers.""

Uh huh? I'm all in favour of trusting teacher and all that - but notwithstanding their alleged consultation with unions and 'education agencies', I have to say if anyone's going to place their trust in me, it might be an idea if someone - at some point - explained what this shit is all about. Because at present I haven't even a ghost of an idea; not a Scooby-Doo; no fucking idea; not even the faintest glimmer of an idea. At all. And they're going to introduce this next year?

Fresh protests in Iran

2009-09-19T12:25:00.004+01:00

The Gadgie reminds us that it isn't over in Iran. The OpenDemocracy piece he links makes the following observation:

"The leadership's immediate concern is the state-sponsored "Qods [Jerusalem] day" demonstrations on 18 September 2009, an annual event held since 1981 when Ayatollah Khomeini designated the last Friday of the month of Ramadan as an occasion to express solidarity with the Palestinians. This time, members of the opposition "green movement" - named after the colour adopted by supporters of the reformist presidential candidate, Mir-Hossein Moussavi - are planning to use the march as an opportunity to fill the streets and voice their protests. The regime is desperate to ensure that there is no repeat of the great mobilisations in Tehran in the tumultuous post-election weeks."

Regimes in trouble always look for external enemies to distract from internal problems - which is presumably why he has cranked up the anti-Zionist rhetoric with a more explicit denial of the Holocaust:

The Iranian president has dismissed the Holocaust as a "myth" before, but this time he was more explicit than ever. "The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false," he said in a Friday prayers sermon at Tehran University. "It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim. Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty," Ahmadinejad thundered as his audience replied in well-drilled unison with cries of "Death to Israel, Death to the United States."

Because there is now surely no doubt that the regime is in trouble?

"Tens OF thousands of Iranians chanted "Death to the dictator" as opposition protestors transformed an annual pro-Palestine rally yesterday into the biggest demonstration against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his military-backed regime for two months.
The protest – in defiance of warnings of draconian retribution by the authorities – was a potent declaration that the opposition is alive and kicking despite a ferocious crackdown since June's "stolen" presidential elections.
[...]
As [the President] spoke, demonstrators nearby chanted, "Down with Ahmadinejad" and "Torture and rape are not effective any more". They shouted in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who millions of Iranians believe was the true winner of June's elections."

When violent crackdowns are seen by a regime's opponents as a sign of weakness, that regime is in serious trouble. Ahmedinejad said,"This regime will not last long. Do not tie your fate to it." He was actually warning Western-backed Arab states about dealing with Israel but I'd imagine these will have already drawn the conclusion that the zeitgeist may have already decided that the 'Zionist entity' will outlive the rule of this vile little fascist.

Haven't trawled all the MSM as yet - the Hootsmon is the only outlet I can carrying it so far...

"I ken't yer faither"

2009-09-17T00:35:00.004+01:00

It's an expression used here to denote the Scots' tendency to knock those few from our rain-sodden part of the world who actually manage to achieve some success in this life. Short-hand for a Calvinistic squelching of any aspiration - particularly when it relates to the arts. Jack Vettriano clearly feels he's been a victim of this:

"The artist is off to Milan next, after he spotted subject matter which he is keeping under wraps, except to say "it has to be painted".

He sees the city as a place where he can be judged on his work alone, not hampered by the "baggage" he has to shoulder in his home country.

Vettriano is referring in part to the controversy surrounding the National Galleries of Scotland's decision not to display the self-taught artist's work, which resulted in accusations of snobbery.

He says: "In Scotland I've got the baggage hanging over me of people saying 'he's a miner from Fife' and all the arguments about the National Galleries.

"In Italy they say he's the grandson of a peasant who left here 100 years ago, his work is very sexy and we love it."

My own view is that while I have no doubt the National Galleries crew are capable of snobbery, in Vettriano's case they made the right decision for the simple reason that he's completely shit. Furthermore, if the evidence included in the link above is anything to go by, he's actually getting worse.

It's not even good porn, is it? I didn't even know he was a miner from Fife - I just knew him as a shit Scottish painter. Let's reverse the whole thing, can we? Just because you're a miner from Fife (apparently), this doesn't mean you're not a shit painter. You are. But you're also fucking wadded because a whole load of rich people who have had their aesthetic sense shot off in the war buy your paintings. So stop complaining.

See the Tuiga Gallery - then weep...

Hello, Prime Minister Brown?

2009-09-11T01:05:00.005+01:00

It's Barack here - Barack Obama. I'd just like to express my disappointment at the decision by the Scottish Government to release Al-Megrahi.

Hi Barack - thanks for calling. Um, y'see the thing is, the decision to release Al-Megrahi rests with the Scottish Government. In a way, this would have been the case even prior to devolution: since the Lockerbie case was tried under Scots Law, the decision would have - or at least should have - rested with the Lord Advocate. As it is, it now is the responsibility of the Justice Minister in Holyrood. I can't say that we're happy with this, but there it is. I don't mean to be rude or anything but you'd think that someone who is the President of a country with a federal constitution would be able to grasp this whole division of jurisdiction thing?

If Brown said anything that even resembled this, I for one would be quite pleased...

Community Property

2009-09-08T22:27:00.001+01:00

If you're familiar with the genre, you might find this amusing...

Car scrappage scheme

2009-09-08T22:00:00.003+01:00

Does anyone know if I could use this to trade my car in for an amphibious landing craft?

I ask because here it has been raining for forty days and forty nights.

Prior to this, it rained for forty days and forty nights.

Don't tell me what the weather's like where you are because my sanity is hanging by a thread at the moment.

For Christmas - would like.